


Snowfall

by N1ghtshade



Series: Pacific Rim scribblings [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Cold Weather, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, I tried to write fluff and it turned into angst, Snow, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 01:16:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13260540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/N1ghtshade
Summary: Raleigh doesn’t like the cold anymore.





	Snowfall

Raleigh doesn’t like the cold anymore.

Winter used to be his favorite season. When classes would be cancelled because no one could get through the three foot drifts, and he and Yance would go sledding and snowball fighting, and their street would take on the kids from the other side of. And dig tunnels in the giant piles left from road clearing and pretend they were daring explorers venturing into the unknown. Mom (when she was still healthy enough that the weather didn't make her lungs worse and send her to the hospital with bouts of pneumonia) used to make hot chocolate and he remembers that she put something more in hers and Dad's, and one time Yance convinced him to try switching his mug for hers. He was sick for two days after and Yancy never let him live that down. Cold used to mean everyone in the family getting as close as humanly possible to the fireplace and playing games of monopoly that Jaz hated and Yance loved (because somehow that idiot always managed to win). When it was cold and snowing, everyone was together. His family felt like family.

Now cold means alone. It means piloting Gipsy back solo, burning up and freezing at the same time, waves crashing into the conn-pod and soaking him. It means laying on the shore in the snow desperately hoping to wake up and realize this was all a dream and the alarm’s gone off and he has to drag Yance out of bed. It feels like waiting in line for hours hoping a spot opens up on the Wall, and at the same time feeling guilty because everyone knows what an open spot means. It feels like the ocean when he jumped in and dragged Mart's kid brother out after the boy slipped on an icy beam and fell thirty feet into Kaiju-Blue tainted water. It feels like the first February 29th after...after Knifehead (after he lost half his soul). The night he used up his entire ration card on beers at the local dive bar, and then passed out in the street, only to wake up in the hospital, lucky the frostbite on his fingers wasn't so bad he couldn't work. 

When he goes back to Alaska, to leave a scrap piece of metal from Gipsy that Mako found in her repair kit on the place they agreed would be Yancy’s grave, he sits up that night in the hotel, wishing they’d fix the heating system. He’s so far gone chasing the R.A.B.I.T. (and he swore after that failed Drift with Mako he’d never do it again) that he doesn’t notice her come in.

She sits next to him and puts her arm around his shoulder, and even though she says it was because she was too cold to sleep alone, he knows she could feel him in the ghost Drift. But he appreciates that she says nothing. She understands. And for the first time in a long time, he’s grateful for the snow falling outside the window, and cold means a family together again.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this little random piece on the fact that where I live it is frigid and I'm getting very tired of needing to wear everything I own to go outside. And of course my brain decided to turn it into Pacific Rim angst...


End file.
